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Saturday, May 14, 2016

For this week's
mission, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing
has challenged us to:

1) Tell us
about your "other" hobbies or interests outside of genealogy and
family history research, writing, speaking, etc. Be mindful of your
family's privacy, though!

2) Write a blog post of your own, respond with a comment to this post, or write
a Facebook status post or a Google+ Stream post.

I do have another life outside of genealogy, even though I could spend 8-10 hours per day doing genealogy research and writing. I do have other kinds of fun as well.

a. Birding. I’m a birder and try to go out at least once a week, even if only in my yard and neighborhood. I do try to get to Moorhen and McNabney Marshes, Heather Farm Park, or the Martinez Shoreline to watch for birds.

b. Gardening. I have a small native plant garden that is in full bloom right now. I also care for many varieties of geraniums in pots.

d. Sports. My favorite game is baseball and my team is the San Francisco Giants. I try to get to a few games per year with my girlfriend or I watch or listen to the games daily. I also like to watch women’s soccer and tennis tournaments when I have time.

e. Volunteering. I volunteer with several organizations. I’m a member of the board at the Contra Costa County Historical Society and volunteer at their archives weekly. I am a member of Friends of Alhambra Creek and one of our projects is working with students from the New Leaf Academy where we’ve planted native plant gardens around town. I also work with the John Muir National Park as a phenology observer once a week. We record observations about 16 plants weekly for the National Phenology Project, whose data help track information about weather change.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Your mission, should
you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1) We each
have 16 great-great grandparents. How did their birth and death years
vary? How long were their lifespans?

2) For this week, please list your 16 great-great grandparents, their
birth year, their death year, and their lifespan in years. You can do it
in plain text, in a table or spreadsheet, or in a graph of some sort.

3) Share your information about your 16 great-great grandparents with us
in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook or
Google+. If you write your own blog post, please leave a link as a
comment to this post.

I didn't get to this until Sunday afternoon, but here are my 16 great-grandparents with their lifespans. The blue are my paternal great-grandparents and the green are for my maternal.

Joseph Heinrich Horoch

1804

1857

53

years

Maria Catharine Trösster

1813

1874

61

years

Vincent Sievert

1823

1890

67

years

Susana Raduntz

1832

1911

79

years

Jeremiah Sullivan

1811

1888

77

years

Mary Sheehan

1822

1892

70

years

John Gleeson

1833

1915

82

years

Margaret Tierney

1835

1920

85

years

Reuben Mack Johnston

1841

1924

83

years

Olivia Jane Jones

1859

1914

55

years

Peter Hayden Hutson

1853

1930

77

years

Sarah Helena Selman

1858

1916

58

years

William Carl Lancaster

1873

1946

73

years

Martha Jane "Doll" Coor

1873

1942

69

years

A. Ebenezer Loveless

1851

1929

78

years

Eliza A. Rodgers

1854

1907

53

years

More than half of my ancestors (9 out of 16) lived past
70 years, which is pretty good. The average lifespan was 70 years.